Tuesday, January 14, 2014

One thing I am sure of: I think the name of this upcoming 3DS platformer is all kinds of lame.

I'm sure the folks at Nintendo have a reason for naming it as they have--such as, they want consumers to think of this as some sort of series reboot à la New Super Mario Bros.--but to me the result is awkward, boring and completely lacking in creativity.

That aside, who really cares what the game's called as long as it's fun, right? Of course, the jury's still out in that regard, too, but I'm holding out hope that, in the end, Yoshi's New Island will overcome its lazy title and its seemingly iffy aesthetics and prove to be a worthy--and wonderfully enjoyable--entry in this hit-or-miss series.

All of the aforementioned negativity aside, the North American version's box art is a step in the right direction, don't you think? I sure do. Or at least I think I do. Yoshi himself kind of creeps me out, as he often does (unless we're talking about the ones that appear in Yoshi's Story, in which case we're all good), but the rest of it's pretty ace.

What do all of you think? Do you consider the cover art above to be delicious, or a disaster? Also, are any of you planning to pick up this portable platformer? (I am; in fact, I pre-ordered it last week.)

28 comments:

TheGameroomBlitz
said...

I'm ambivalent. I'm one of the rare gamers who preferred Super Mario World to Yoshi's Island, The latter game may have twee in spades, but Super Mario World feels a bit more solid and is certainly more intuitive.

As for this new game in the series, I'll reserve judgment until it's on shelves, but I'm not chomping at the bit for it. The upcoming 3DS Kirby release (complete with the pink puffball getting smashed into the camera by giant disembodied hands) looks really, REALLY nice, though.

It's ok, I'm not wild about it. But (Art-ruining Optical Illusion warning!) the combination of varied line weight and shading makes it look to me as if Yoshi is not actually holding that egg at all, and is doing some kind of dance a great distance in front of it.

Personally, I love both Yoshi's Island and Super Mario World. I probably talk about YI more than I do SMW, and I'd probably put YI above SMW if I were to concoct a list of my all-time favorite games, but, really, I love them both.

Also, I'm in the same boat as you RE: New Island. I'm not excited about it or overly looking forward to it, but I'm curious about it, and that's all I need at the moment.

Ah, yes, I noticed the same thing, Michael. The varied line shading, I mean. I hate stuff like that :| I also just hate the mixing of art styles, etc., in general--which is one of the big reasons I'm not hot to trot about New Island so far. It's like the game's designers couldn't agree on a style and so just decided to go for a few. Argh!

THE TITLE! OH, GOD...THE TITLE! Someone at Nintendo needs to be smacked. Hard. With a chainsaw.

Seriously. We get it. New. Okay. It was good the first time. But STOP. Yoshi's New Island is an atrocity as bad as Super Mario 3D Land. Stop jamming modifiers where they CLEARLY DON'T FIT!

#rantover

I'm probably going to skip this one, as I felt the mechanics of the last one were...just okay. More of the same, even with gigantic eggs, I don't think is going to appeal to me. And that's NEW Justin's 3D Opinion 64.

It's a cute, kid-friendly box... although it kinda looks like Yoshi is humping that egg instead of carrying it. I liked the SNES game, so I'll probably pick this up eventually. It's coming out the same week as Final Fantasy X/X-2, so Yoshi will have to wait his turn.

Well, it looks a lot less offensive than the game, I'll give it that much. The art itself anyway - the composition has me scratching my head like that conspicuously photoshopped-in monkey in the background. Yoshi's walking on... cotton candy with flowers sprouting out of it, surrounded by bulbous glazed donuts? And the sky is bright yellow for some reason? It's a weird juxtaposition of something generally abstract-looking with elements that imply that it's a depiction of an actual scene.

Frankly I can't really think of any Yoshi covers that blew me away or anything, so I don't think this game has some special pedigree to live up to, but regardless I kinda feel "inoffensive" is the word that sums this cover up.

You know, Josef, I think your description of this piece of box art is completely spot-on.

Also, I can't disagree with you that most previous pieces of Yoshi cover art are pretty forgettable. That said, I like the JP cover art produced for Yoshi's Island (Super Famicom) and Yoshi Story (N64). Also, I thought the JP cover art for Yoshi's Island DS was pretty nice, too.

About this blog

Yep, I'm gay. And I like video games. Old Japanese games and systems are my favorites--the Famicom, PC Engine, original PlayStation and GameBoy, especially--but I like plenty of newer ones, too. If you have similar interests and you don't mind perusing a blog that's got the word gay in its name and is practically slathered in pink, you'll probably enjoy your time here. I'm also on Facebook, Flickr, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter, by the way. Oh, and my Switch Friend Code = SW-5852-5514-6897.